Georgia Legislator Wants to Make April 26 Confederate Memorial Day and April Confederate History Month

  3/28/17  Mike Victor

The Georgia legislature meets for only a few frantic weeks a year, after which these part-time lawmakers return to their day jobs.  What's astonishing is their ability to pack so much national embarrassment into such a brief legislative session.  

State Representative Tommy Benton (Republican), whose Georgia legislature web page describes him as a retired history teacher as well as a "life member of the National Rifle Association and the Sons of Confederate Veterans" while remaining "active in the Military Order of the Stars and Bars."  One organization he never found time for, despite graduating high school in 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War, was the United States military.  

Military Order of the Stars and Bars

Honoring our Confederate ancestors since 1938

In case you're wondering, the Military Order of the Stars and Bars, according to their web page, "was founded in 1938 to honor the Confederate Officer Corps and the government officials of the Confederacy. Our members are all lineal or collateral descendants from these two groups… We are loyal Americans whose mission is to honor our ancestors and our Southern heritage."

Visit their web page and you will see a picture of the founder of the KKK, Nathan Bedford Forrest, staring out at you as if intent on burning a cross on your lawn with Jefferson Davis, the Confederate States of America, arrested a few hours south of Atlanta.  

But I digress.  

Tommy Benton (yes, that is his legal name, just as Georgia politicians Johnny Isaacson and Newt Gingrich bear the name of their birth certificates) won his election to the Georgia State House with 100% of the vote.  It would have been embarrassing if he didn't since he ran unopposed.  

Several days ago, he introduced House Resolution 644 to recognize April as Confederate History Month and rename April 26 Confederate Memorial Day.  It's apparently not the confederacy you might have read about in history books, though, because nowhere in the resolution is slavery or the Civil War mentioned.  
No, this confederacy was engaged in a noble but lost cause, a "four-year struggle for state's rights, individual freedom, and local government control."

That last point, sadly enough, is true.  It was only last year that our governor removed Confederate Memorial Day from the official state holiday calendar.   We still have a holiday but politely call it "state holiday."

Before you write off Benton's resolution as an attention-getting stunt by a bored white guy from a comfortably safe Georgia rural county, please take note that at least 3 of his colleagues agree with the need to honor the West's only explicitly white supremacist nation and are willing to co-sponsor it (Reps. Alan Powell, Steve Tarvin, and Jesse Petrea).  

The idea of honoring the struggle for the right to own black men, women, and children has for some reason drawn condemnation from the Georgia NAACP as well as members of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus.

Benton apparently likes stirring the pot.  Last year he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the Ku Klux Klan "made a lot of people straighten up."   Perhaps he was misunderstood - perhaps he wasn't referring to people but the hairs on the back of their necks because I know mine stand on end when I think about cross-burnings and lynching. The backlash he created stunned the good legislator.  Ah, shucks, he was just trying to honor his Southern heritage.  Do you know who the real perpetrator is here?  That's right, the Lame Street Media.  "The media has seemed to go out of its way to try and make this something that it's not," Benton said. "We are not creating anything that's not already in code. Confederate Memorial Day has been celebrated since 1874."The doctrine of states' rights has an ugly history down here. States' rights in the American south almost always means one thing:  the right of white Americans to deprive black Americans of their rights.  Before 1865, states' rights meant the right to own slaves; since then, it's meant the right to enforce Jim Crow and segregation.  Ask a white southerner to name the most egregious example of federal overreach in all of its dastardly forms - including rightwing talking points about judicial activists legislating from the bench - and you'll inevitably get to Brown v the Board of Education, the landmark 1954 ruling striking down separate but equal and beginning the long, painfully slow march toward racial integration.   The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 met fierce, often violent resistance among southern whites who - once again - raised the hallowed-sounding notion of states' rights in their brutal campaign against the civil rights movement.   They took federal courts backed sometimes by federal troops to enforce.   It was no coincidence that the white people forming ugly crowds to prevent black children from attending "their" schools flew the Confederate flag whose ideals Benton now wants us in Georgia to honor.   

I'm always curious as to why Republicans clamor so much about states' rights when it comes to slavery or the right to keep blacks out of white schools but belong to a party that believes the federal government should override state and local governments on all matters from public safety (they want to force all states to honor concealed gun licenses issued by the weakest) to environmental protection (they want to ban California from setting stricter emissions standards than the EPA) to immigration (punishing states and cities that believe that enforcement of immigration laws is a federal rather than a state and local responsibility).  If there is a theme of respect for state and local governments in Republican behavior and policy, I fail to see it.

Put me in the camp of those who say that any right that involves depriving other Americans of rights is no right at all.  

This weekend while walking through historic downtown Decatur, I was once again struck by the enormous obelisk with CSA 1861-1865 engraved at its base.  Why is it still there, in the same grassy square where open air concerts will soon be held to Americans of all ethnic groups and regional origin?   Perhaps I am the only person to actually read the grandiose, self-serving nonsense about the brave men fighting for what they thought was right on four sides of the memorial, but such an anti-American monstrosity has no place in my town.  

But instead of tearing it down, or rededicating it to the victims of the transatlantic slave trade or the American holocaust of slavery or the century of civil rights workers, many of whom gave their lives just to be treated like human beings, some Georgians insist the Confederacy, the defunct white supremacist failed state that caused so much misery and suffering, needs more honoring, not less.  

The Confederate States of America is a failed experiment in explicit white supremacism.  Had it survived, had it not mellowed out and abolished the peculiar institution that prompted its formation, slavery would be as mindlessly and fiercely defended by southern whites as they now defend their related second amendment rights, broadened from their original intent to form a militia to suppress slave uprisings and hunt down fugitive slaves to stockpile weapons of war in your truck.   

How sad that 152 years after Georgia rejoined the United States of America following the failure of that grand slave-owning insurgency, there are some among us who would like to glorify and honor what was once the greatest existentialist threat to our country.

A Confederate Memorial Day with no mention of slavery would be like having a Third Reich Memorial day without mentioning the camps or the Holocaust.  Separating the cause of the Civil War - slavery - from the war itself is like trying to separate white from rice. It simply can't be done.

If you are a white supremacist take pride in the Lost Cause mythology and think that there was something noble in the human catastrophe of the civil war, you have the right to do so in the privacy of your own home.  Hell, you can even fly your traitor flag from the back of your truck.  No one is going to stop you apparently.

But don't ask the rest of us to set aside a day to sanctify your misunderstanding of history and your obliviousness to the suffering of the 20% of Americans who at the time of our country's founding were in bondage.  

If we do have a holiday, let's dedicate it to the spirit of unity that allowed Southerners finally to lay down their arms and admit they had been beaten, stopping the carnage they began 4 years earlier.  At a time when all Americans use the authority of the Constitution as the final authority to support their argument, even if they interpret it differently, let's not forget that there was a time when men throughout the south so hated that document and the government it authorized that they rose up in violent and bloody revolt, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans in the process.

We should never let that happen again.  Perhaps we could use a day each year to re-commit ourselves to never becoming so divided that words and sectional differences explode into actual bloodshed.

Maybe that would be the most fitting tribute to the Civil War.  

Pedestrian safety: how not to kill or be killed while walking to school

March 27, 2017

In 2013, while crossing the street to catch her school bus, my daughter was hit by a car.  She fully recovered, but her minute of unresponsiveness and the subsequent hospitalization was a terrifying experience that I hope no parent must go through.   

So I've accumulated here a few tips for pedestrians and drivers that might reduce the risk of a tragedy from low to astronomically low.  I presented the following to my daughter's school administrators in the hope that it might be helpful to the parent community, and am posting it here as well.  

Background

According to the CDC, 4,735 pedestrians were killed and 150,000 injured in traffic crashes in the United States in a recent year, about one pedestrian death every 2 hours.   Atlanta ranked as the 8^th most dangerous city in the United States for pedestrians according to Dangerous by Design's 2014 survey, which also noted:

-          16 times as many pedestrians are killed on American roadways as die in natural disasters. 

-           Pedestrian deaths now account for almost 15% of all traffic deaths.  

-          Georgia is the 5^th most dangerous state to be a pedestrian with a pedestrian danger index (a combination of pedestrian deaths and pedestrian density) double the national average.   

-          Pedestrian accidents are a leading cause of death of children 15 and younger.  Between 31-61% of all injury-related pediatric hospital admissions are from pediatric accidents.  

-          Children are especially vulnerable because they are less visible to motorists, less able to judge the speed of oncoming traffic, and often do not see cars coming.   Since they do not drive themselves, they may not appreciate how difficult they are to see, especially if they dart out into traffic from between parked cars. 

-          112 Georgians were among the 4,394 children aged 1 to 15 killed as pedestrians in a recent 8-year stretch.

Some tips for pedestrians

Don’t jaywalk and train your children never to jaywalk.   Many parents stop their cars in the middle of a block only a few feet from a stop sign but instead of walking their children safely along the edge of the road to the stop sign to cross there, they allow them to cross in the middle of the street. This is extremely dangerous and blocks the flow of traffic. Since all drivers must stop at a stop sign, this is the safest and most convenient place for all to cross.  Even if an accident does occur, the vehicle will be going very slowly.

As parents, we must practice what we preach.  It is both good citizenship and good for our hearts to always use designated pedestrian crossings. Jaywalking seems a trivial crime but the cumulative probability over a lifetime of crossing where drivers do not expect to see pedestrians is high.  

Cross the street directly, not diagonally.   Cross streets directly in a straight-line perpendicular to the flow of traffic.   Crossing diagonally increases exposure to traffic and the probability of being hit.   We should train our children to make eye contact with any drivers, not cross until the car has come to a complete stop, and to continue to swivel their heads as they cross.  We should train our children to always assume that drivers have not seen them, never to dart out into the street, and to do whatever it takes to make themselves visible or audible.

Pull the earplugs.   Many students seem oblivious to drivers at least in part because they are listening to music, so are distracted and unable to hear cars they may not have seen.   At least while crossing streets, it would be best to mute the music or pull the earplugs out.  Since there are many more hybrid and electric cars on the road that make very little noise - so won't necessarily be heard - it is critical to remember that the car that hits you is the car you don't see or hear.

Face traffic.  Students walking to school along streets with no sidewalk should never have their backs to traffic.   In most cases, this means walking as close to the curb as possible on the left side of the road facing oncoming traffic. I cannot count the number of times I have seen students walking to school on the right side of the street, sometimes drifting into traffic without realizing it. 

Wherever possible use sidewalks.  I've seen parents as well as children walk in a street already narrowed by parked cars on either side when a perfectly good sidewalk is available.   If an obstacle is blocking the sidewalk, such as a trashcan or debris, feel free to move it - sidewalks are considered public property that you have a right to access freely. 

Tips for drivers:

Slow down!   The single biggest thing we could all do to decrease the probability of serious injury or death to a student is to decrease our speed.  If you are going 30 mph and hit a child, you are nine times as likely to kill her as is a driver going 10 mph.   Our kinetic energy (and hence our risk of killing someone) rises as a square of our velocity, so halving your speed increases a child's chance of living by at least 75% (more, since you are less likely to hit a pedestrian in the first place if your drive slower).  Also, come to a complete stop - not a "rolling stop" - at stop signs and always use your turn signal.

Get off the phone.  Although calling while driving is legal in Atlanta, that doesn't mean it's wise.  A driver who is using a cell phone - even with a hands-free device - is as impaired as someone driving intoxicated.   At the very least, why not get off the phone when you are near the school?    That call can wait.  If you cannot resist the impulse to answer that incoming call, then silence your phone and put it in the trunk or somewhere out of reach when you drive.

Distracted driving is particularly lethal for younger drivers; 21% of teens involved in fatal accidents were distracted by their cell phones.   Teen drivers are those with the highest proportion of distracted-driver accidents.   

And it should go without saying, but NEVER text and drive.  A driver going 55 mph who looks down to check a text message covers an entire football field before looking up.

This also applies to pedestrians.  A distracted cell phone user is oblivious to traffic and greatly increases her risk of being hit by a car. 

Consider carpooling in a smaller car.  Larger cars are not necessarily safer than smaller ones (SUV's and trucks are particularly prone to rollovers that caused almost half of all motor fatalities) and block everyone else's visibility.    Larger cars also give their drivers the illusion they are driving slower than they really are.  They clear potential bottlenecks far less easily than smaller cars and are ecologically harmful.    Your car's mass might be the critical factor determining whether a struck pedestrian lives or dies. 

Remove grill bars (aka bull bars) from your car.   I have lived in Atlanta for over 20 years and have yet to encounter any cattle crossing the road.   Grill bars are extremely dangerous if you hit a pedestrian, concentrating all the force of your vehicle in a much smaller area, pushing the child forward then under the vehicle instead of against the curving front of the vehicle.   German researchers determined that although 95% of children would survive being hit by a car at 20 miles per hour, a car equipped with bull bars could inflict the same damage at only 12 mph and would kill a child at a speed as low as 10 miles per hour.   This is another reason not to carpool in a truck, SUV, or Land Rover type vehicle since these are the vehicles most likely to be equipped with pedestrian-killing grills. 

Please don't idle.   I have noticed that despite clearly-posted "no idling" signs, many drivers waiting to pick up children ignore them.   Please turn off your car's engine if you are going to be stopped for more than 10 seconds.   Some idlers do so because they believe (incorrectly) that restarting an engine uses more gas than idling.   Restarting the engine of a modern car uses the same gas as about 10 seconds of idling, so for anything longer than this, please stop emitting the harmful pollutants that hurt the lungs of our children as well as contribute to smog in the short term and global warming in the longer run (an idling car emits about 1 pound of CO2 every 10 minutes).   Auxiliary power can be used to recharge a phone or play audio without burning fossil fuels near our children. 

I know that's a lot to digest, but I've thought about these issues quite a bit over the years.  I would much rather ruffle someone's feathers if doing so might help make the morning carpool experience even a little bit safer. 

   - Mike Victor

Another bizarre week in Trump Land: FBI, Russia, Barred Reporters, Kansas City "Get Out of My Country" Shooting, Record Temperatures, Warren Buffet

Another bizarre week in Trump Land: FBI, Russia, Barred Reporters, Kansas City "Get Out of My Country" Shooting, Record Temperatures, Warren Buffet

Mike Victor

February 26, 2017

Only 1,345 days until the next presidential election

As I write this, Trump has only been in office 38 days, just 2.6% of his administration if he manages to serve his entire 4-year term without implosion, indictment, or impeachment.  

It's only 617 days until the Midterm Elections, folks, when the balance of power could start to change, and 1,345 days until the next Presidential Elections.    But who's counting?  

Trump Contacts FBI To Help Downplay Russia-Trump Ties; FBI Rejects Request

The Russian-Trump scandal continues to develop.  According to CNN,  senior White House officials contacted the FBI in an effort to get the agency to knock down the Trump-Russia ties story.   As CNN put it:

The Trump administration's efforts to press Comey run contrary to Justice Department procedure memos issued in 2007 and 2009 that limit direct communications on pending investigations between the White House and the FBI.

"Initial communications between the [Justice] Department and the White House concerning pending or contemplated criminal investigations or cases will involve only the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General, from the side of the Department, and the Counsel to the President, the Principal Deputy Counsel to the President, the President, or the Vice President from the side of the White House," reads the 2009 memo.

The memos say the communication should only happen when it is important for the President's duties and where appropriate from a law enforcement perspective.

The White House was enraged by this story, saying they were only trying to get the "truth."  They initially denied that White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus took FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe aside during another meeting, then later admitted this had happened.  Priebus then contacted McCabe and FBI Director James Comey asking for the FBI to talk to reporters to downplay the Trump campaigns 2016 contacts with Russia.  Comey rejected this request because it is involves an ongoing investigation.

Trump bashes the free press, continues to try to redefine "fake news"

On Friday morning, Trump told an annual right-wing gathering that the press is phony and an enemy of the people.   He insinuated that any story relying on anonymous sources must be "fake news," hoping perhaps to redefine the term by deliberately and repeatedly misusing it.
It's important to recognize that simply because the public doesn't know who a source is, this doesn't mean that the journalist and often the editor of the publication don't know and haven't made some effort to vet and corroborate the story.  There is nothing unethical or inappropriate about using anonymous sources and if all sources had to be named, it is very likely that our government and most large corporations would be able to act with relative impunity, protected by a shield of de facto privacy.   The track record of anonymous sources is mixed, but some important cases, such as Watergate, would not have been broken and made public were it not for anonymous sources.

It's interesting that the White House calls stories based on anonymous sources "fake" but often ends up admitting that most or all of the facts in the stories are in fact correct (often after initially lying or obfuscating).  

At the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump even tried to downplay the high number of corroborating leakers (after earlier complaining about the high number of leakers):  

I saw one story recently where they said,  "nine people have confirmed. …"  There are no nine people. I don't believe there was one or two people.  And I said, "Give me a break."  Because I know the people, I know who they talk to. There were no nine people."

The Washington Post  did cite nine unnamed sources in a recent story that then-national security adviser Michael Flynn discussed sanctions against Russia then lied about it.  Trump fired Flynn shortly after the story ran.  

"Everything we published regarding Gen. Flynn was true," The Post's executive editor, Marty Baron, said in a statement.   "As confirmed by subsequent events and on-the-record statements from administration officials themselves. The story led directly to the general's dismissal as national security adviser. Calling press reports fake doesn't make them so."   [emphasis added]

Trump bars CNN, the New York Times, and media who criticized him

On Friday, the Trump administration did something that had never been done by any president in United States history, and selectively barred news organizations from the afternoon "gaggle", an informal press briefing with press secretary Sean Spicer.   According to NPR, "journalists for CNN and other news outlets, including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed, and Politico" were barred from Spicer's briefing.  

Ironically, Donald Trump as a private citizen used to call major newspapers using an assumed name to plant stories, in effect acting as his own "anonymous source" publicity agent.  

During the briefing, Spicer admitted that the targeting was retaliation:  "We're going to aggressively push back. We're just not going to sit back and let false narratives, false stories and inaccurate facts get out there."  
Trump's move drew swift condemnation.  

"These are moves that governments around the world make when they are less sophisticated and they want to block the press from doing its job, and it's sad to see that it's a tactic that the Trump White House is employing," CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker told NPR.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper criticized Trump on Friday for his "lack of a basic understanding of how an adult White House functions" which he called "un-American."
"It's silly on their part to retaliate like this," Zucker said. "I think it says more about them and the way they view the press, and the truth, than anything else."

The New York Times said it was unprecedented in the paper's history of covering administrations of both parties.  

"Free media access to a transparent government is obviously of crucial national interest," Baquet said. The White House Correspondents' Association and the National Press Club also weighed in.

In solidarity, reporters from Time magazine and The Associated Press boycotted because their peers were barred.  

De facto Muslim travel ban might be struck down, but its effects linger

Although Trump's travel ban on 7 predominantly Muslim countries was struck down by the courts, the confusing anti-Muslim message the ban sent continues to create ugly situations.  

Abu Romman, whose father attended the University of Illinois and always heaped praise on the United States as a land of opportunity and openness, was stopped at Chicago's O'Hare airport and questioned extensively by a Customs and Border Protection official.  

Abu Romman is a Jordanian citizen, but born in Syria. He's been to Syria only once since birth — and being born in an Arab country doesn't automatically confer citizenship there. Instead, citizenship is generally based your father's nationality. Still, Abu Romman couldn't persuade the border officer at O'Hare that he wasn't Syrian.

"He said, 'Sir, if you were born in Syria, you should have a Syrian passport,' " says Abu Romman at his family's home off a winding street in the Jordanian capital. "I said, 'Why should I have a Syrian passport? My father is Jordanian. My mother is Jordanian. We all are Jordanian, but it happened to be in Syria where I was born.' He knocked on the glass next to him, to his colleague. He said, 'We might have a problem with this."...

The officer wasn't convinced that he wasn't planning to stay in the U.S.

"He said, 'Sir, we're going to be cancelling your visa,'" says Abu Romman...

The officer told him he would not be allowed to call his embassy before he signed papers agreeing to be deported. He says he wasn't allowed to phone a lawyer or a family member.

"He said, 'If you refuse to sign the papers ... I will ban you from entering the United States for the rest of your life,'" Abu Romman says…

CBP officers took his jacket, his belt, his phone and his shoelaces, he says, and put him in a cold cell with a steel door and open toilet, along with five other people.

He was deported back to Jordan.

Syrian Rescue Worker and documentary film-maker Khaled Khatib was blocked by the United States from attending the Oscars, where his movie “The White Helmets” is nominated for an Academy Award.  According to the Associated Press and the New York Times,

The Department of Homeland Security blocked Mr. Khatib after discovering “derogatory information” about him… Mr. Khatib had planned to attend the ceremony after the Trump administration’s travel ban was lifted… A member of the White Helmets, a group that searches for survivors in the rubble of bombed-out buildings, Mr. Khatib also filmed the group’s rescue efforts for the 40-minute film… In an interview with The Times earlier this month, Mr. Khatib said he hoped his appearance at the Oscars would convey the urgent message of the movie, and pressure President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the Russian government to stop bombing Syrian civilians.

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi boycotted the Oscars because of Trump's travel ban, instead asking Anousheh Ansari to read the following statement after the filmmaker won Best Foreign Language Film for "The Salesman":

I'm sorry I'm not with you tonight. My absence is out of respect for the people of my country, and those of [the] other six nations who have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the U.S. Dividing the world into the 'us' and 'our enemies' categories creates fear – a deceitful justification for aggression and war. These wars prevent democracy and human rights in countries which have themselves been victims of aggression.
Filmmakers can turn their cameras to capture shared human qualities and break stereotypes of various nationalities and religions. They create empathy between us and others, an empathy which we need today more than ever.

As the brain drain from State continues, a retiring diplomat gives a withering critique of Trump's policies:   "The option of a white man's republic ended at Appomattox."

Daniel Fried delivered a powerful defense of the liberal international order at the retirement celebration honoring his 40-year career as a diplomat who helped guide America through the end of the Cold War in Europe.   He has long been critical of Russia, but before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  He was the lead expert on sanctions at the State Department, helping craft those imposed on Russia after Putin annexed Crimea in 2014 and started fighting in eastern Ukraine.

In his

"The West's great institutions, NATO and the EU, grew to embrace 100 million liberated Europeans," Fried said.

He noted the 1930s appeasement echoes in Trump's talk of a separate "deal" with Russia.  Germany offered Britain a sphere of influence deal in 1940, Fried said. "Churchill didn't take the deal then.  We shouldn't take similar deals now."

"We are not an ethno-state, with identity rooted in shared blood," he noted. "The option of a white man's republic ended at Appomattox."

 

Meanwhile, a Kansas man shot two men because they "looked Arab"; his victim was actually Indian-American

        

Gun-owner and self-appointed Make America White Again agitator Adam Purinton was arrested Thursday after shooting 3 men, killing one of them, after first yelling "get out of my country" just before opening fire  in a bar and grill in Olathe, Kansas.  According to the New York Times, "two of the victims, Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani, work for Garmin, which has its U.S. headquarters in the town...Kuchibhotla, 32, died after being taken to a hospital; Madasani, 32, is recovering from the attack, as is the other victim, Ian Grillot, 24.

Purinton fled the scene then reportedly told a bartender that he needed a place to hide "because he had just killed two Middle Eastern men."  He now faces murder charges on a $2 million bond.   "It kind of sent chills down the spine," Sridhar Harohalli of the India Association of Kansas City said. "I was like, wow. This has hit us close to home ... this is home to us."

More evidence of reality's well-known liberal bias:  Temperatures In Boston And Buffalo Rewrite Record Book

Twitter

On Friday, the temperature in both Buffalo, N.Y., and Boston hit 71 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.  These are both records, the hottest temperature since records began in 1872.  The last time Buffalo was close to this hot was 111 years ago when Theodore Roosevelt was president.

This is the latest reminder of record-setting rising temperatures.  2016 was the hottest year on record according to separate reports by both the  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA

If you have any climate skeptics among your friends and family who agree with Trump's allegation that climate change is a "hoax" perpetrated by the Chinese to gain competitive advantage with American manufacturers, please show them this chart.

According Deke Arndt, chief of the monitoring group at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, N.C., 2016 "was the warmest year on record, beating 2015 by a few hundredths of a degree, and together those two years really blow away the rest of our record… The long-term warming is driven almost entirely by greenhouse gases.  We've seen a warming trend related to greenhouse gases for four, five, six decades now."  

               

Warren Buffet, in a rebuke to Trump, celebrates the amazing strength of the United States economy

In his annual message to shareholders, billionaire investor and philanthropist  Warren Buffett, celebrated the “miraculous” United States economy.  He's usually bullish, but his latest letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders was especially optimistic.
He also sang the praises of "a tide of talented and ambitious immigrants" as well as "the rule of law to deliver abundance beyond any dreams of our forefathers."  
He didn't mention Trump by name, but his optimism about American growth is a rebuke to Trump's insistence that the economy is a "disaster" or a "bubble" or "disaster."  
Warren Buffet is no armchair leftist, of course.  Last year, his stock price surged 23%, twice that of the S&P 500.
Buffet has been extremely critical of the outrageous fees hedge funds charge for underperforming the market.  He encourages index funds and low fee index exchange-traded funds.  Nine years ago, he bet that an index fund could beat a basket of hedge funds.  He is on target to win that bet:  Vanguard's flagship S&P 500 Index Fund is up 85% since then, way ahead of the 22% return of the hedge funds.  Annualized, that works out to 7% for the index funds versus only 2.2% for the hedge funds.  According to the New York Times:

As usual, Mr. Buffett did not mince words in expressing his astonishment as to how elite investment professionals could register such mediocre returns while raking in steep fees.

“I’m certain that in almost all cases the managers at both levels were honest and intelligent people. But the results for their investors were dismal — really dismal,” he wrote. “And, alas, the huge fixed fees charged by all of the funds and funds-of-funds involved — fees that were totally unwarranted by performance — were such that their managers were showered with compensation over the nine years that have passed.”